Te most important point is that the installation process itself will verify and let you that your computer hardware supports Windows Server 2012 installation or not . Otherwise you need to upgrade your hardware.

Installation

Follow below mentioned steps to install Windows Server 2012.

Step 1 − You can download the evaluation ISO of Windows Server 2012 R2 from the following link − https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2

To download it you need to sign in first with a Microsoft account like Hotmail. The evaluation period to download will be 180 days to decide whether the product is good for you or not.

Meanwhile you can decide to buy the license of your Windows server 2012 R2. It is also available to purchase it online via a Microsoft online store found in − http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/list/Windows-Server/categoryID.70676900?icid=BusinessR_Software_80_Windows_Server_112315

We recommend to purchase it via a Microsoft partner that is found in your country for the Enterprise solution.

Step 2 – Once you complete downloading the ISO of Microsoft then create a boot USB driver which can be created with the Microsoft tool called Windows USB/DVD Download Tool and can be downloaded from the following link − https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

Once you download the EXE file, then open it and choose the ISO file location. Now click next as mentioned in the following screenshot. After that wait until the end when the Boot USB is created.

Step 3 − After completing the above process , plug-in the USB to the server and wait for few seconds till it loads the files. It will take few minutes as shown in the following screenshot.

Step 4 – Once the file loading completed then you will see the screen of language settings of installation, keyboard, time and currency format. Now click Next.

Step 5 − Click “Install now”.

Step 6 – After clicking Install Now, the setup will start and it will load all the files and the screen will look as mentioned in the following screenshot.

Step 8 – After that click “I accept the license terms” and then click on the Next button as shown in the following screenshot.

Step 9 – Now you can create a new partition, delete or format the Hard disk in “Driver Options”. Once you have completed this process, you can select the partition where the Windows server 2012 R2 will be installed. Now click on Next.

Step 10 – Just wait for few minutes until this process finishes during this time and then the server will reboot.

Step 11 – After completing the reboot, following screen will appear. Set the password for the server and then click on “Finish”.

Step 12 – Again it will take couple of minutes until the setup finishes completely.

Step 13 − Once all this is done, you have completed the installation process and the following screen will appear.